Help with Length of EASY Routine

[krfrance07]

I am still trying to get my 7 week old LO on a good EASY routine.  We didn't discover BW until she was 4 weeks old and have been working on it ever since.  I am confused as to the length of her "night."  In reading about sleep requirements for young babies it says they require 8 hours at night, but our 3 hour EASY is set up for a 12 hour night.  Bedtime at 8 pm and wake at 8 am.  I realize she will need feeds in there, but is that how it's supposed to be set up?  My LO is having trouble with it.  We put her to bed every night around 8, but she is erratic in her morning waking times.  Her DF is at 10:30 when I am on my way to bed, then she usually wakes around 3 am for a feed, although sometimes it's as early as 2:30 and sometimes as late as 3:30.  Then she wakes at a different time every morning.  Monday she was up at 6:45 crying and I fed her, but she didn't take a full feed, although she did poop, which might explain the crying. She wouldn't go back to sleep so we did a little A time and then had her regular feed at 8:00.  Tuesday she woke at 5:30, gave her the pacifier and went back to sleep only to wake again at 6:15 and take a full feed, then back to sleep until I woke her at 8:45.  (Due to exhaustion I fell asleep too and didn't wake up at 8 to wake her up.)  Then today she woke at 7:05, tried to give the pacifier to get back to sleep, but she was having none of that and demaded to be fed.  I fed her and we were on a day that started at 7.

Also, her naps get progressively shorter as the day goes on, but she wakes up from them happy.  Her first nap is usually 2 hours preceded by about an hour of A time.  Second nap, much the same.  Third nap is usually only about 45-50 minutes and no amount of shush patting will send her back to sleep.  So we have a little A time before her next feed.  Finally her "catnap"  which is difficult to predict.  Sometimes she goes down hard and sometimes it's just a little one.  Any ideas or suggestions?

[~*Nicole*~]

Even though your days are ending up varied, you are still following a pattern of eat, awake, sleep, etc. That is always good. It sounds like she wakes sometime between 6 and 7 for the day typically....which is pretty common as well. You just use the A time that normally gives you good naps and work from there the best you can. Your DF is at a good time. She is only waking once through the night to feed.

Can you post your routine from the past day or two and maybe we can see why she is napping shorter as the day goes on. Does she take the pacifier for naps? How do you try to resettle her?

She is still very young so I wouldn't worry too much about having a perfect schedule, but I would keep doing what you're doing and working on extending her naps a bit for the time being and try to rest yourself when you can and enjoy her

[krfrance07]

Actually, the only reason I am worried about a schedule is that while I can be (and often am!) flexible during the day my husband is military and so has no leeway with when he has to go to work and such.  In an effort to get him off to his duty day on time and get our large dog taken care of a first feed at 7 is difficult.  I love taking both dog and baby for walks in the afternoon, but early in the morning it is usually cold and crappy weather and I get a better walk in if I am not worried about the stroller.  Earlier than that is ok and around 8 is ok, which is one of the reasons that we would like an 8 to 8 day, but I will keep working on it.

Here was our day on yesterday:
E - 06:15
S - 06:45
E - 08:45 (I woke her up for this one)
S - 09:40 with pacifier (needed soothing twice during nap) although generallly this is her best nap and I don't have to go in
E - 11:30 (I had to wake her for this feed)
S - 12:30 with soothie (indicated she was tired - needed soothing twice during nap - pacifier inserted both times)
E - 14:20 I had to wake her for this feed as well
S - 15:15 with pacifier
Woke up at 16:00, pat/shush and pacifier until 16:50, but no sleep, seemed wide awake and wanted to play
E - 17:00
S - 17:50 (this should be her catnap although she seemed really tired, so I put her down a little early and let her stay down)
E - 19:10 I had to wake her
Bath
E - 20:00
S - 20:40
E - 22:30 DF
Fed again at 03:00, but she was wide awake, so I put her in her crib, still swaddled.  According to DH she sounded awake until 04:00, but she didn't cry until 07:00

Today:
E - 07:00
S - 08:30 - I think this A time was a little long, but I missed her signs and was trying to get myself some breakfast - she woke at 09:11 and continued on and off waking and dozing always needing soothing until 09:46 when I took her out of the crib and let her play in her swing for a few minutes
E - 10:00
S - 11:00 Napping in car seat as I had to go pick up a friend at the train station - we got home around 12:30 and I went up to put her in her crib as she woke up when we got home she was down in her crib at around 12:50 (I accidentally rocked her to sleep)
E - 14:00 I woke her for this, but wanted to let her sleep for a little while as she had two really bad naps - perhaps I should have let her go a little longer, but I don't like for her to go so long between feeds during the day
S - 15:30, although we started the wind down at 14:55, but she didn't want to go down, so I had to shush/pat a few times before she settled - she woke wanting her pacifier at 16:20, but slept until 17:00 after that
E - 17:00
S - 18:10 she was asleep (this is her catnap), woke up at 18:30 dozed until 18:40, when I put her in her swing - no sleep but she happily watched the world for awhile
E - 19:01
Bath at 19:15
E - 20:00
DH put her to bed and she was asleep at 20:20, but she needed soothing (patting and her pacifier three times until 21:20 when she was out for good I think)  The past 3 days she has gone down and stayed down with no trouble, so I think she might have been a little OT tonight.  If she is too OT we have major meltdowns, so it couldn't have been too bad as she was not overly fussy and crying.  We probably timed her window wrong.  I have been struggling sometimes to get it right, but I keep observing in hopes of figuring it out.  Of course once I do, she will change it on me.  :-)

She generally takes the pacifier for naps, although often she doesn't for the first nap of the day.  For most of this week, she sucks on it for a few minutes at the first and second nap before spitting it out and going to sleep.  The later naps, I often have to go back in and reinsert it as she fusses for it a little before falling off.  Also, she is swaddled for all her naps and bedtime, although generallly as soon as she gets swaddled she starts to fuss as she doesn't like it.  I am hoping to be able to leave out one arm and then two in another few weeks when she gets better control over them.  She often seems to be fighting the swaddle and wakes herself up at the 5-6 minute mark of sleep.  But if I leave her unswaddled, she brings her arms up to her face and hits herself.  Lately she has been bringing her left hand up to her mouth and occasionally is licking at her hand.  She has only does this in the last couple of days, so I am waiting to see if it continues and if she can do it with consistancy before leaving that arm out.  I may try leaving it out during her first nap as that is her best one and see how it goes.  Anyway all suggestions and comments gratefully accepted.  This is my first child and so everything is new and somewhat confusing.

[~*Nicole*~]

I think you are on the right track.

In regard to the 8 hours at night mentioned in the book and you having your lo set up on a 12 hour day from 8-8...it just depends on your personal preference.

I think some people aim for 3 naps of 1.5 hours each, then a catnap and then a bedtime around 7pm or so knowing there will be a DF plus some NFs. I think OTHER people do more naps in the day and a bedtime closer to when THEY go to bed.

There are a lot of sample schedules that you can browse through here:
http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=10384.0

I think you can work toward an 8-8 day but a lot of los do wake earlier as they get older b/c their bodies start to differentiate between night and day with help from the body clock setting sun. So don't be too surprised if she starts waking a bit earlier as she gets older.

So you're basically working on about a 1 hr. A time and getting almost 2 hour naps sometimes but having to wake her for feeds? I think if you let her go the full two hours and feed her as soon as she wakes herself you'd be fine. She isn't likely to go beyond 3.5/4 hours between feeds and since she is getting a DF and waking to eat at night she will probably get her fill. You probably don't need to wake her to feed her during the day unless she is going past the 4 hour mark, which I don't think she would do.

If you want her to be on an 8-8 routine though, the easiest way is to always start her day at 8 and always try to have her in bed around 8 and tweak the REST of the day to get those two times as close to normal as possible. So if she wakes before 8...treat them as NWs and try to soothe her back to sleep and not feed her until 8 as long as she's been fed reasonably recently for her NF. Your DF can probably be a tad later since she is on a later routine, but I wouldn't go past 11:00pm.

If you have a day where she is demanding to eat at 7 and you can't hold her off, go ahead and let her have a little. Try not to offer a full feed and see if you can distract her or do something else and then feed again at 8 to try to get back on track.

As she gets older she may need more A time to take those long naps we all love. She is approaching 8 weeks and is in the area of 1 hr. 15 and 1 hr. 20 minutes so that may be why she takes a good nap right in the morning and shorter naps later. If she has less than what she can handle she won't be tired enough to sleep for long enough.

You can also try to get more consistent wake times by having more consistent NF times. If she gets the DF at 10:30/11ish she should be able to sleep a stretch of 4-5 hours. If you try to slowly push her feed time to 3:30/4ish consistently then she should be able to get used to sleeping another long stretch to 8am and not feeding until then. So I would always offer her the paci and shhh/pat, reswaddle if need be first. If after a bit she can't settle then feed. Every few days you can try holding her off until the 3:30/4ish time and then try to keep it there. Do the same for the morning. If she wakes earlier than 8 you can try all the tricks and keep trying to hold her off. It shouldn't take too long before she is used to waking and eating at only certain times. If that doesn't work you can always go back to 2 NFs....I did 2am and 5am until DD was 4 months b/c she still woke around 7 and ate well then and we could start our day at 7 pretty consistently. And be wary of growth spurts. They do roll in every so often. I think there's one around 3 months. Then just feed like crazy


That was a lot of rambling info. I hope it wasn't too confusing. Plus some of it is just based on experiences I had with DD. So of course you need to follow your los cues.....which it sounds like you are doing an excellent job of. It actually sounds like she is doing well on her routine.